Marynowitz shares Kelly's vision for Eagles but leaves door open for Mariota.

New Philadelphia Eagles vice president of player personnel Ed Marynowitz was surprisingly candid about Tim Tebow Thursday, but not so talkative when the subject turned from the current Eagles quarterback to a prospective future one.

Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota of the University of Oregon is a good player, he confirmed to a roomful of reporters in a wide-ranging discussion about the NFL Draft and team-building philosophies. But beyond that …

"He's been a very productive college football player," a careful Marynowitz said in his first meeting with the media since being promoted following a reorganization of the power structure in January. "We've done our evaluation work on him, obviously. I'm not going to get into the specifics of where we have him or what his strengths and weaknesses are. He's a player we're aware of and we've gone through the process."

The Eagles, of course, are thought by many to still be interested in trading their way up the draft board next week from their current position of No. 20 in the first round to wherever it will take to obtain Mariota. This, despite already having acquired Sam Bradford in a blockbuster swap of quarterbacks with the St. Louis Rams and Kelly guaranteeing he wouldn't mortgage the team's future to trade up for someone like that.

Marynowitz echoed that sentiment on Thursday, though he left the door open for something to be done.

"I share the same philosophy that Chip does on that," he said. "I think philosophically we are opposed to mortgaging the future. That was Chip's term. Really, the way we look at it is every draft pick that you have is an opportunity to improve your football team. So the more opportunities we have to improve our team, we're excited about that.

"I'd rather have more picks than less picks, and I think Chip shares that philosophy. That doesn't preclude us from moving up and doing something. I think you never say never, but philosophically you would like to pick eight players or more, not less."

Marynowitz also admitted that the team knows exactly how much it would be willing to give up to get to the top of the draft. Understandably, he added, "We're not willing to share [that] outside the building. We know what mortgaging the future is internally."

As for Tebow, who hasn't played in a regular-season game since 2012, Marynowitz said the team was impressed by the improvements he made to flawed mechanics that have kept him out of work for two straight seasons.

"Obviously we were intrigued with what we saw there [in a recent workout before signing him on Monday]." Marynowitz said. "We saw a player who improved from the last time we saw him live, which was when he was here with New England [in joint practices with the Patriots in the 2013 preseason]. We had some conversations and some discussions and we felt that it was an opportunity to bring in someone who could compete for a spot.

"Look, we've got 68 players who are on our football team right now, and Tim's one of them. He'll have an opportunity to compete for a roster spot. And his role will be determined by his performance. It's as simple as that. We're bringing in a guy that'll be able to compete, and we look forward to watching him compete."

The 31-year-old Marynowitz made it clear that even though he may grade players differently than Kelly, who has total personnel control, they can always find some common ground.

Kelly is entering his third season as coach but only his first with total control. Previously, former general manager Howie Roseman was a big part of the process and ran the drafts, according to Kelly.

Marynowitz believes he became Kelly's right-hand man by just being there for support from the start of the changes.

"It's a huge undertaking for a head coach to take over personnel responsibilities at that time in the process," he said. "So at that time, with the departures that happened, I was the highest-ranking personnel person in the building, so it was my responsibility to get him caught up and up to speed on where we were at in the process, from a pro scouting standpoint in terms of free-agent preparation and in the draft.

"So I just caught him up to speed, let him know that I was here to support him in any way and did not ask to be interviewed for the job or anything like that. They came to me during the interview process."

The Eagles are doing business in a brand-new way this year, and it seems like they've found the perfect fit to complement Kelly in his quest to make over the roster.